My television watching, however, has evolved from constant sit-coms and dramas (my TiVo is still full of Seinfeld at any given moment) to more "educational" shows - like food-related programming. Depending on the season, I watch:
- Top Chef (Tom needs to learn how to use his knife and fork properly, but it doesn't dampen my viewing experience)
- The Next Food Network Star
- Hell's Kitchen (Chef Ramsay is terribly rude, but remarkably delightful)
- Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (sorta makes me never want to eat outside of my house again)
- A Cook's Tour (Tony Bourdain is a god)
- No Reservations (ditto)
- Martha (yes, I still love her)
- America's Test Kitchen (I love Christopher Kimball's geeky New England persona)
- Everyday Food
- Nigella Lawson's new show (Express?)
- Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger
- Iron Chef America (Who doesn't love Alton Brown's wry sense of humor?)
- Good Eats (ditto)
I'm sure I'm missing some, but it doesn't end with the TV. I love watching Mark Bittman's videos on the NY Times website (see the links to the right). Sometimes during lunch (for which I never leave my desk), I sit there munching on whatever I've brought in or gone to pick up and I watch him effortlessly create something as involved as paella or something as simple as tomato soup. His humor, his irreverence, his just general down-to-earth-ness (like that?) makes it a great escape despite the fact that while I'm watching him my inbox is being flooded with emails marked "urgent" and "high priority."
I also very much love checking out the recipes on Epicurious.com (I am biased, though, my brother-in-law runs the website). I love that they have joined in on the Facebook bandwagon. So now when a recipe excites me (which is hard to avoid), I can save it to my Epicurious recipe box and my friends on Facebook can view that inspiration for themselves. This almost implies that I cook some of these recipes. And, truthfully, that never really happens. This is the technological equivalent to my mother's big binders of recipes (that during one fateful visit home I tried to organize....I gave up and will likely not try again). I have a number of friends from various points in my life who also consider themselves foodies, and this type of technologies have made it possible for us to have a collective recipe box. How lucky can we be??
I must also make a shameless plug for the food blog of my college friend, Annemarie. My blog is more the pedestrian foodie blog. Hers is the blog to which I aspire. Let's be frank, while working 10-11 hour days, I'm not going to come home and make my own macaroons. I'm lucky if I don't hit up the fast food on the way home instead of heating up leftovers. But I drool almost every single time I read her blog. Her savory and detailed pictures of "pre" and "post" make my stomach growl, no matter how much Taco Bell I might have had that night. Her descriptions are so detailed and so well-written that it makes me believe that I too could attempt such grand dishes and meals. She tells stories of London dinner parties, great cheese discoveries, and her herb and vegetable garden....all things I dream of (yes, I dream of great cheese discoveries). In any event, the link is to the right - it's the Nectar and Ambrosia blog and it is most definitely worth the read.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I have made a pact with myself, much like the almost annual pacts I would make about keeping a daily journal - I have vowed to post 3 times each week. That's less than 50% of the days, so surely I can have the discipline to even just post what I ate...if it's food...it's fair game.
And with that, I'm signing off to go back to the one thing that might just keep me from flogging (get it - food blogging?) - Rock Band. I love hitting those drums. :-)
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